"Playing oblivious, it seems," Azaron replied calmly, his hand rising as he crossed it against his chest. Ender, his soul-bound weapon, was already screaming within his mind, urging him to begin the attack immediately. The sentient, blood-loving spear pulsed with anticipation, eager to taste battle, but Azaron ignored it. Although he, too, wished to fight, that was not the sole reason he had come here.

He was here to enjoy the moment.

This was not about revenge, nor was it driven by rage or hatred. It was simply the thrill of battle, the rare opportunity to cross weapons with a being who stood at the Crownstar Life Rank. Who knew when next such an opportunity would present itself? Battles of this level were few and far between, and Azaron intended to savor every second of it.

Valentine remained silent for a brief moment, his face still hidden within the suffocating darkness beneath the hood of his cloak. The atmosphere felt heavy, charged with unspoken intent. Then, finally, he spoke.

"If I tell you who posted the mission against the Tenth Sun, will you leave?"

The question was straightforward on the surface, yet deeply misleading beneath. The way he framed it subtly implied that he was not the one who had made the move against the Tenth Sun. With a single sentence, Valentine sought to challenge whatever conclusion Azaron had already drawn, attempting to create doubt without directly denying anything.

Although Valentine stood at the Crownstar Life Rank, it did not mean he wanted to battle Azaron.

It wasn't fear, he was not afraid of Azaron. Rather, he understood the cost. At this moment, there was nothing to gain from clashing with the Wargraves. What he would lose, however, was substantial: his headquarters reduced to ruin, his elite assassins slaughtered, decades, no, centuries, of meticulous effort erased in a single confrontation. Worse still, he would inevitably be injured.

At their Life Rank, they were no longer ordinary beings. Any injury sustained was not easily healed. Healing required surrendering one's body to another, often a healer, an act that left one vulnerable, even to death. For someone like Valentine, that risk was unacceptable.

"How misleading, Valentine. You are still just as sharp and intelligent as ever," Azaron replied calmly.

There was nothing Valentine could say at this point that would sway him. Azaron trusted the information Zarek had provided him completely. That trust was unshakable.

Valentine's eyes narrowed beneath the shadow of his hood. He already knew where this was heading. One side would fall today, it was inevitable. His gaze subtly shifted toward the assassins surrounding the Wargraves and their Knights, his mind calculating possibilities, searching for an opening, an advantage, anything that could tilt the scale.

"Valentine," Azaron's voice echoed once more, steady yet suffocating, "you've broken the agreement between the Wargraves and the Assassin Guild. I hope you are ready to pay the price," he paused briefly before continuing, his golden eyes gleaming faintly, "and above all, I hope you don't disappoint me."

Before Valentine could utter a single word, the only thing that filled his vision was the spear's tip, already mere inches from his forehead. In that fleeting instant, Azaron had erased the distance as though it had never existed. His movement was so absolute that the wind itself lagged behind, only screaming and shrieking after he had already completed his advance.

Valentine reacted in the same breath. His motion was instantaneous. The world slowed to a crawl around him as his senses surged into overdrive, every nerve snapping into place as his muscles coiled and tightened. The surroundings dissolved into a formless blur, color draining from his vision as clarity sharpened to a lethal edge. In the very next instant, he tore through the sound and wind barrier as if it were nothing more than fragile paper, slipping to the right with absurd ease and speed.

Ender tore through the space where Valentine's head had been with absurd force and crushing weight. The very point of existence he struck collapsed instantly, space itself shattering with contemptuous ease. Azaron's golden eyes snapped toward the direction Valentine had dodged to.

He did not speak. His Astra energy simply boiled around him, seething and rising, and in the very next instant, an all-consuming, sundering plasma erupted from his being in a crescendo of ruin and madness, tearing forward as it collapsed upon Valentine.

Valentine was ready. He had already sensed Azaron's control over his Astra Energy. In response, his own Astra surged through his Astra veins, darkness and shadow coiling and twisting around him, forming a perfect cocoon, both shield and sanctuary. In the next instant, the sunderous plasma slammed into the cocoon of darkness with unrestrained madness.

The world seemed to slow, as though reality itself hesitated, unwilling to permit the shockwave and apocalypse born from this singular collision. Yet reality could not stall forever. In the next moment, the world turned white, and an all-erasing, cataclysmic burst of energy tore outward with the fury of a dying star.

The landscape was instantly swallowed by blinding radiance and rampant madness, blackness and whiteness entwined in violent harmony. Everything vanished. Shattered buildings were erased from existence in an instant, while the infernal heat of Azaron's plasma transcended flame itself, liquefying the earth and all that surrounded it, as though the world had been remade into a reality composed solely of volcano and devastation.

A colossal mushroom cloud of pure annihilation rose into the sky, stretching upward as if to claw at the heavens themselves. The shockwave that followed slammed mercilessly into the assassins and the Knights, those who had presumed themselves worthy of standing beside two beings who dared to call themselves Human.

Within his cocoon of darkness, Valentine stared at Azaron calmly. For all the madness Azaron had unleashed with a single casual attack, it had failed to breach his defense.

His black eyes met Azaron's golden ones briefly. Then, without warning, his body dissolved into a mist of darkness, reforming several meters away in another location.

Azaron did not speak. A smile appeared briefly on his lips before vanishing the next second.

At this moment, Valentine had passed the test.

Azaron was tired of opponents, regardless of race, dying to him from a single casual strike. He wanted a battle. A real one.

Valentine let out a quiet sigh. Though he would never admit it aloud, deep down, he found himself enjoying where this was headed. His long-suppressed love for battle began to surface, slithering up from the depths of his consciousness.

As an assassin, he loved killing. As a man who had risen to his current level of power, he spent most of his days confined within a dimly lit office. He had no worthy opponents. The missions his guild received involved targets far beneath him, beings so weak they failed to elicit even the slightest thrill.

At this moment, it no longer mattered whether the Tenth Sun was alive or dead. If he could kill a Primarch, he would achieve something no one in the entire history of the Assassin Guild ever had.

Darkness rippled around him. In the next moment, two short blades formed in his hands, shadow and darkness coiling tightly around his body as tension spiked.

If there was one thing the people of Crymora did not know, it was this, no one loved war and battle more than those who had reached the Crownstar Life Rank.

"Let's get this over with, Azaron Wargrave," Valentine intoned coldly.

Azaron no longer restrained his smile. A wide grin stretched across his face as pressure mounted around the mountains with every passing second.

"Don't break so easily, Valentine," he replied, his battle intent unmistakable in his voice.

His cape danced violently to the rhythm of the wind behind him as he locked eyes with Valentine. As though sharing a single mind, the two vanished simultaneously, moving at speeds beyond anything anyone present had ever witnessed.

And with that, Azaron and Valentine began their descent into madness.

Whether the world could contain them was unknown.

But one truth was absolute, one of them would fall. As for who, that remained to be seen.

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